External Media Player

[ThaBlackMamba]

Has anyone ever tried/thought about adding an external media player to their system. I met this guy through a friend the other day who had a Z2 in his 08 Suburban. He was showing off all the features, then he pulled out this odd looking remote that I knew didn't go to the Z2.

 

He set the Z2 for A/V input and then he fired up this "media box" where he stored movies, photos, and music. I asked him how his setup was and he showed me this box that was under the rear seat that looked like a regular external computer hard drive. He said it was a MVIX-760HD and you can put any sized computer hard drive into and store all kinds of music and movies. He had a 500GB dire installed and said it player WMV,WMA, MP3,MP4, DIVX, ISO, VOB formats and much more.

 

He said it hooks up to a computer just like an external drive through the USB port and the unit has all the Component, DVI and coaxial connections on the back.

 

I just bought one off of eBay for $150 and got it this past weekend. I played with it on my HDTV and the HD picture is superb. I'm gonna load it up with media and get it ready for the Avalanche when the Z2 goes in next week.

 

There are a bunch of others too, if you Google "HDD Media Player" you see some less expensive models out there.

 

Has anyone else tried anything similar? how do you like it?

[CatchMeIfYouCan631]

Has anyone ever tried/thought about adding an external media player to their system. I met this guy through a friend the other day who had a Z2 in his 08 Suburban. He was showing off all the features, then he pulled out this odd looking remote that I knew didn't go to the Z2.

 

He set the Z2 for A/V input and then he fired up this "media box" where he stored movies, photos, and music. I asked him how his setup was and he showed me this box that was under the rear seat that looked like a regular external computer hard drive. He said it was a MVIX-760HD and you can put any sized computer hard drive into and store all kinds of music and movies. He had a 500GB dire installed and said it player WMV,WMA, MP3,MP4, DIVX, ISO, VOB formats and much more.

 

He said it hooks up to a computer just like an external drive through the USB port and the unit has all the Component, DVI and coaxial connections on the back.

 

I just bought one off of eBay for $150 and got it this past weekend. I played with it on my HDTV and the HD picture is superb. I'm gonna load it up with media and get it ready for the Avalanche when the Z2 goes in next week.

 

There are a bunch of others too, if you Google "HDD Media Player" you see some less expensive models out there.

 

Has anyone else tried anything similar? how do you like it?

 

what format are the movies required to be in? i have a videora program to put movies into mpeg4 for the iPod, would that possibly work?

[ThaBlackMamba]

For the Mvix, the movies can be in any format. I tested an MP4, WMA, and a DVIX encoded AVI file and it played them all without issues. I also created an ISO image of "The Last Dragon" (my favorite movie), and the unit played it as if the DVD was inserted in it, got the menus and all the extras.

 

Of course if you took the extra time you could Rip the DVD just to get the video portion without all the extras.

 

Not sure about any of the other units out there, but for the most part they seem to all be able to play multiple movie formats.

[CatchMeIfYouCan631]

For the Mvix, the movies can be in any format. I tested an MP4, WMA, and a DVIX encoded AVI file and it played them all without issues. I also created an ISO image of "The Last Dragon" (my favorite movie), and the unit played it as if the DVD was inserted in it, got the menus and all the extras.

 

Of course if you took the extra time you could Rip the DVD just to get the video portion without all the extras.

 

Not sure about any of the other units out there, but for the most part they seem to all be able to play multiple movie formats.

 

thats all i needed to hear good looks

[jackalanche]

I have my Vizualogic 9" headrest DVD screens-players sending and receiving audio+video to and from my AVIC Z3 (I can watch what the DVD they are playing in the rear, or they can watch the DVD I am playing on the Z3)

[ThaBlackMamba]

I have my Vizualogic 9" headrest DVD screens-players sending and receiving audio+video to and from my AVIC Z3 (I can watch what the DVD they are playing in the rear, or they can watch the DVD I am playing on the Z3)

 

Sweet!!

[HiFiSi]

I actually though about getting one of these before I got my ipod... basically you hook the thing up to the radio's AV inputs and play movies/music/pics off of it. It's pretty cheap, too. Like $30 for the player plus however much for a hard drive to put in it. Most of them will play a really diverse selection of movie formats as well, like divx, mpeg, mp4, avi, etc. Even disk images play on some of them.

[CatchMeIfYouCan631]

I actually though about getting one of these before I got my ipod... basically you hook the thing up to the radio's AV inputs and play movies/music/pics off of it. It's pretty cheap, too. Like $30 for the player plus however much for a hard drive to put in it. Most of them will play a really diverse selection of movie formats as well, like divx, mpeg, mp4, avi, etc. Even disk images play on some of them.

 

it seems like a much better investment than an iPod but how would the f series perform with it? you mentioned certain bugs with an ipod on urs if the iPod had alot of memory on it, but what about a unit with alot of songs and movies and pictures? and can you control it thru the deck?

[ThaBlackMamba]

I actually though about getting one of these before I got my ipod... basically you hook the thing up to the radio's AV inputs and play movies/music/pics off of it. It's pretty cheap, too. Like $30 for the player plus however much for a hard drive to put in it. Most of them will play a really diverse selection of movie formats as well, like divx, mpeg, mp4, avi, etc. Even disk images play on some of them.

 

it seems like a much better investment than an iPod but how would the f series perform with it? you mentioned certain bugs with an ipod on urs if the iPod had alot of memory on it, but what about a unit with alot of songs and movies and pictures? and can you control it thru the deck?

 

I doubt you'd run into those issues on the F series simply because the stereo does not access the hard drive at the all. The External drive outputs the video and the F series just displays it. the sucky part is that you can't control the external drive through the stereo but the upside is that the majority allow the ability to add an RF extender.

 

Just put the RF senson close to the radio and aim the included remote and you can control the external drive with ease.

[HiFiSi]

It would just play it. All the AVIC sees is a video signal. Everything else is handled by the player itself.

[PaisanNYC]

As mentioned previously, i am using a Vantec Avox Multimedia Jukebox with a 120gb harddrive. This model is a lil old school, as I have had this same unit for 3 years but it works great..

 

Watch for which media players you purchase. I have been told to stick with media players that use 2.5" laptop sized harddrives. They are built to be mobile and more rugged than a traditional 3.5" desktop computer harddrive.

 

3 years, and the orginal media player and harddrive have lasted in my last two vehicles. 100degree+ temps inside the car in the summer, and 20-30degree temps in the winter, its still ticking.

[Mr.BigWorm]

As long as it has RCA plugs it will show up on any dvd deck with a line input in source.